Friday, August 25, 2006

Resistance is Futile

"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." The Borg

Yesterday I met up with a friend. We talked about where he feels connected and wants to be, which is not London, yet things are not unfolding fast enough for him to be there. Because he doesn't want to be in London, he finds he can't be fully present where he is now.

I could so relate to my friend's predicament. He got me thinking about resistance versus surrender. There are two types of resistance: fight or flight. This means you are either fighting or trying to run away from where you are; and you are not at peace.

What if you took away your lifestyle, employment, people, places, beliefs, experiences, thoughts, emotions and all forms, what are you left with? Nothing but the essence of who we all are. I call this essence Love, Energy, Self or Source. Put another way, all these things are aspects of Self. Fighting or fleeing the Self is an illusion. You can't fight yourSelf because whatever you are fighting, you already are. You can't run away from yourSelf because wherever you go, you already are. The only solution is to surrender and be the Self and let the Self take you on its journey of eternal being and eternal presence. You end up seeing gems you never knew were present when you were fighting or trying to flee from a situation, which is only an aspect of Self anyway.

I am reminded of a classic episode of StarTrek Voyager called Twisted.

"During a surprise birthday party for Kes at Sandrine's Bar in the holodeck, the U.S.S. Voyager encounters a peculiar spatial distortion wave in space, which surrounds the ship. The phenomenon disables the vessel's main systems, including communications and the warp drive, and also seems to change Voyager's structural layout. As a result, Janeway can't find her way to the Bridge, Torres can't locate Engineering, and everyone in the crew is confused and frustrated."

The crew are desperately trying to understand the phenomenon and why it is transforming the ship. To add to the chaos and uncertainty, members of the crew are disappearing. Even the captain has been affected by the phenomenon; she is semi-conscious and being delirious. The crew do all they can to restore the ship but all their efforts fail. In the end Tuvok, a Vulcan renowned for his logic, advises the crew that as they've already tried everything they know, the only logical option is to do nothing. In other words, "resistance is futile." The crew reluctantly surrenders to the wave phenomenon. The wave passes through without harming anyone or the ship. When the captain regains consciousness she tells the crew the distortion was trying to communicate with them. The crew also discover the phenomenon has downloaded tons of new information into their database. For me, the phenomenon represents the Infinite Self, our essence.

In my own experience it's been an ongoing process of surrender to Self. Years ago I was at a crossroads where everything had fallen apart. I had broken up with my boyfriend and my life wasn't working. I hated living in London yet the only option I seemed to have at the time was moving in with my mother and I didn't want that. All I could think of was being somewhere else. If I couldn't be in another country I would rather be in another reality. I was in deep depression and fantasised about suicide a lot. One day it felt as if someone had switched the light on. (I reckon my mother's prayers had finally kicked in). I suddenly noticed my mother had several books about metaphysics on her bookcase. I couldn't believe it! She said she was going to chuck them out as she didn't find them of any value but something told her to keep them. That was a turning point for me. It was then I realised I was where I needed to be. I embarked on a new journey of discovery into the Self.

I've had many different turning points because the Self is vast beyond measure and is always revealing more of Itself. Does this mean I've lost all my personal desires? Hell no! Instead of losing them, Self is transforming all my human desires into Its desires. For instance, before I used to write in sporadic bursts and had long periods of "writers' block." When I surrendered to Self, it felt like a dam had burst within me; I knew myself to be a never-ending source of wisdom and inspiration. Interestingly enough, I have also fallen madly in love with London. While I'm sure I'll live in other wonderful places at least I know that wherever I live it will always be in Self.

On my way home on the bus last night I noticed two young women and a man having a giggling fit. They were laughing so hard I got the giggles. When the women got off it was then I realised the man wasn't with them, he'd simply been caught in their giggle wave, which he was happy to go along with. That's one way of surrendering to the moment.